Investigation of the academic achievement about pyhsical principles of simple machines and the metacognitive awarness of 7th grade primary school students

The aim of this study to determine the level of academic achievements about pyhsical principles of simple machines and the level of metacognitive awarness of 7th grade primary school students. It is also aimed to determine whether there has been a meaningful relationship between the academic achivement levels and the metacognitive awarness levels and the meaningful differences in this relation according to gender. In this study, correlation type relational screening model is used. . Population consists of 7th grade primary school students in Ankara. Sampling of study consists of 414 7th grade primary school students who study in spring semester of 2010-2011 education year at ten schools chosen rondomly in Çankaya and Yenimahalle distrinct of Ankara. The quantative data obtained from 'Metacognition Awarness Inventory (MAI)' developed by Scraw and Dennison(1994) and transcribed into Turkish by Abacı, Çetin, Akın (2006) and 'Academic Test about Simple Machine' developed by the researcher. The research was performed at two steps as essay and actual application. The pre-application was conducted by 8th grade primary school students study in fall semester of 2010-2011 education year (N=100). The actual application was carried out in the second semester of 2010-2011 educaion year (N=414). In the analysis of obtained datas, pearson moments correlation coefficent and multiple lineer regression are used to analyze the relationship between academic achivement and metacognitive awarness levels of students, and also t-test is used to analyze the difference in the academic achivement and metacognitive awarness levels according to gender. Furthermore, in the case of significant differences between groups, the effect size of the differences is tested using eta-square (η²) correlation coefficient. As a result of analyze, it is observed that there is a parallel relationship between the academic achivements and metacognitive awarness levels. When examining metacognitive awarness levels of 7th grade primary stchool students according to their gender, any statisticaly meaningful difference is not found. But, meaningful difference in the academic achivement levels of 7th grade primary school students according to their gender is observed. Key Words: Science Education, Metacognitive Awarness, Academic Achievements.